


ever on

by scheherazade



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-01
Packaged: 2018-12-09 21:02:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11677020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scheherazade/pseuds/scheherazade
Summary: The day Daichi leaves for Tokyo, Koushi doesn't see him off.





	ever on

The day Daichi leaves for Tokyo, Koushi doesn't see him off or hug him one last time at the bus stop, to wish him luck. The bus leaves at six in the morning. Far too early for anyone to be up during school vacation, they'd agreed.

Still, Asahi offered to call him, meet up, maybe walk over together. Daichi and Koushi both laughed at him. "Just listen to this sentimental fool," Koushi said, while Daichi snickered against his shoulder. 

"No crying at the bus stop, Asahi. You're forbidden from coming if you're gonna cry. I'm leaving this town with some dignity."

"I wouldn't—" Asahi protested, and couldn't string together the rest of that thought. He deflated with a little laugh. "I just thought it'd be nice."

"Just the three of us?" Koushi suggested, and Daichi added, "Like old times." Asahi started to nod, and then Koushi said, "Yeah, he'll definitely cry if you let him go."

"Suga!"

Their combined laughter, loud in a blue spring night. Out here on this hilltop where it was just the three of them—like old times, or anytime—and if Koushi closed his eyes the weight of Daichi's head against his shoulder could be nothing more than a comforting thought.

 

* * *

 

Hours ago, Koushi had slipped out of the house in the moonlit dark and hiked up to where they'd agreed to meet. Same place they always went, when they wanted to be alone. Backpack heavy on his shoulders. Sweat cooling on his brow. 

Asahi brought a flashlight. Daichi brought an old picnic blanket. Its edges mangled, thanks to his dogs and their games of tug-of-war. The material was heavy enough to mask the pebbles and twigs littering the ground.

"This place is a little creepy at night," Asahi said.

"Tough," said Daichi and Koushi in unison.

Koushi pulled a brown paper bag out of his backpack. The cans were a little bigger than the ones used for soda. He didn't need a flashlight to guess the wide-eyed look on Asahi's face. 

Daichi accepted one without hesitation. "Are you gonna tell me how you got these?"

"Do you really want to know?"

"Kind of, yeah." Daichi smiled at him. "I'm starting to question everything I ever knew about you, Suga-san."

"Consider it my solemn duty to you, Sawamura-kun," Koushi intoned. "Can't let the boys in the big city rob you of your innocence when we're perfectly capable of doing it right here."

Asahi spluttered, as Koushi thought he might. Daichi just laughed. Koushi pulled back the tab. It popped the fizzed, the same way soda did. Daichi followed suit. After a moment of hesitation, Asahi did as well. 

Koushi raised his beer. "To our glorious captain, as he goes gallivanting off on this new adventure." 

Asahia added, "We're really gonna miss you, Daichi."

"Oy, oy. It's not like I'm leaving forever. I'll still come back for vacations and stuff."

"You'd better," said Koushi.

Daichi smiled back at him. The beer cans made an unsatisfying thunk, nothing like the crisp clink of glass.

"On three?" 

Koushi nodded. "One." 

Asahi looked grimly resigned. "Two."

"Three!"

It didn't taste as bad as he'd expected. Bitter, but he could think of far worse things. Asahi made a comical face and actually spat out the first sip, which made Daichi splutter, and then Koushi was laughing as well. 

 

* * *

 

At some point Asahi said, "I don't actually feel drunk," and then fell asleep with his long legs dangling over the picnic blanket edge. Koushi twisted the tab off his beer. 

"When are you heading to Sendai?" Daichi asked.

"In two weeks."

"Cutting it a bit close, aren't you."

"It's just Sendai. No big deal."

"You should come visit Tokyo." Daichi leaned against him, idly spinning an empty can and watching it wobble on the uneven ground. "Can't believe we're actually getting out of here."

"Never heard you complain before."

"Just feels like we're really done with this place, you know? We got through high school. Went to nationals. Even had a last-minute rebellious teenage phase."

"You're welcome."

A laugh. "Couldn't have done it without you."

The empty beer can spun and wobbled, wobbled and spun. Koushi said, "You need an actual bottle for that."

"For what?"

"Stupid games that girls like to play."

Daichi's lip quirked. "Know a lot about that, do you, Suga-san?"

Koushi kissed him, too quick to taste anything but bitter heart-pounding fear. Daichi looked at him in surprise. Koushi sat back and laughed. If he couldn't breathe, it was because of that. 

After a moment, Daichi huffed as well. "What's so funny?"

"Your face."

"Excuse you."

"No excuses," Koushi said, because he had none. Not the unsteadiness in his limbs nor the weight of Daichi's smile, the years they've had and tomorrow's goodbye, the way he kept promising they would see each other again, but even if Daichi promised everything and the world, it's still miles and miles between them that never existed before. 

People drift and fall apart, and Koushi always expected to be the first to break. He wasn't made of sterner stuff, like Daichi, nor did he have the heart that Asahi wore openly on his sleeve. He'd stolen his best friend's first kiss, and Daichi still looked at him like he understood even if he didn't know. 

"Suga," Daichi said, and Koushi stood up on barely wavering legs. 

"Time to sneak back." He managed not to step on Asahi. "Whaddya think, should we leave him?"

"I got it." Daichi shook Asahi until the other boy startled awake. "Let's go, big guy."

"Where?" Asahi asked, voice thick with sleep. 

Daichi helped him to his feet while Koushi watched. "Home."

Koushi picked up the blanket and the empty cans. Daichi guided them back down to the road where they exchanged their respective burdens, and then Daichi said again, 

"Suga."

Asahi's head lolled against his shoulder, mumbling that he was fine, he could walk on his own. Koushi kept a firm grip on his waist. "I'll get him home. Say bye, Asahi."

"We'll miss you," Asahi mumbled, and Koushi elbowed him. "Ow." 

Daichi laughed a quiet sound. "See you," he said, looking straight at Koushi. 

"Yup." It sounded like a question, but he knew it couldn't be.

It wasn't until he'd gotten home—slipping noiselessly through the back door, up to his room in the dark—that Koushi realized they'd forgotten Asahi's flashlight on the hill.

 

* * *

 

The day Daichi leaves for Tokyo, Koushi wakes up before sunrise. His head hurts. He'd fallen asleep in his clothes from the previous night. The eastern sky is pale with false dawn as he trudges up the road. Through the break in the underbrush, a skinny trail tamped by teenaged feet. The incline feels steeper than before.

Daichi was the one who found this place, back when they were still first years. _You can see the bus leaving from up there,_ Daichi said. To which Koushi countered, _You can also see it if you just go down to the stop._

But that wasn't the point. Daichi grinned at him. _We're gonna get on that bus someday, Suga. Going to nationals._

In the end it had been a team bus that ferried them to that long-hoped for dream. Details have a tendency to change. With morning still a scant blush on the horizon, Koushi looks down from his vantage point at that road and tries to imagine where it ends; he feels as small as he did then, and this time Daichi isn't here to promise another _someday_ they might share.

A car pulls up to the stop. Two dark-haired figures step out. Daichi is taller than his father now, and lifts his heavy suitcase with ease. It's too far to make out the expression on his face.

They'd agreed not to do this.

Koushi searches the clearing for Asahi's flashlight. It must have rolled away. Dirt under his fingernails, slender branches catching on his shirt. There, among the brambles. A thorn scratches his arm. His fingers close around a small metallic thing—the tab he'd torn off an empty can.

He hears the sigh of doors closing. The rumble of an engine, a crunch of tires below.

He runs. Among the brambles and trailless trees, kicking up dirt and leaves. Branches give way to a sloping shoulder of the hill, curving perpendicular to the road. The sky brightens behind him, and he follows with the morning air burning in his lungs.

A tumble of rock too steep to climb. His path runs out. Hands on his knees. A press of metal in his fist. _Tell me what you were going to say,_ he thinks, and the bus doesn't stop or slow. _Don't leave,_ he pleads, and the road goes only ever on.

" _Daichi!_ " he screams into the breaking dawn, and the only reply is a flutter of sparrow wings startled into flight.

 

* * *

 

The day Daichi left for Tokyo, Koushi walks home alone and meets Asahi on the road.

Asahi looks startled to see him. Koushi holds out the flashlight. "You forgot this." He knows his eyes are red. He wants to smack that sympathetic look off of Asahi's face.

The flashlight changes hands. Asahi says, "Did you go?"

"Where?"

"To see him off."

The sun lifts slowly over the hills, and Koushi says, "No."

They walk back side by side. Koushi's shoes stained with mud and dew, Asahi's sandals flapping against his feet. The flashlight clicks on and off, on and off, flickering light in his nervous hands.

"I've been thinking," Asahi says. "Dad doesn't really need my help on the farm. Not yet, anyway. I've been thinking of finding a job in Sendai. Learn some things that might be useful."

"What are you going to learn there that's going to help with the farm?"

"I don't know." Click click, on off. "I don't want to outgrow this place. But maybe I could grow into it. If that makes sense."

It doesn't make sense. It's a dumb idea. Like the piece of aluminum still in his pocket. Like chasing something he always knew would leave him behind. It doesn't stop him from saying,

"You could stay with me while you're looking for a job."

"I— Yeah?"

"Yeah." There's no reason for Asahi to look so overwhelmed. Koushi punches him in the arm. "Don't you dare cry all over me."

Asahi smiles down at the road. "Okay."

Click click, goes the flashlight, in time with the tread of their feet. Nearby, a crow calls, and farther off, another answers. In two weeks, it will be his turn to leave. Maybe he'll let Asahi see him off at the bus stop. Koushi smiles to himself, and wonders what he should do with the first day of the rest of his life.


End file.
